In distributed switching systems, switching entities perform packet forwarding, forwarding entry learning, and aging out of forwarding entries. If a switching entity is associated with multiple Virtual Local Area Networks (“VLANs”), each VLAN may have its own forwarding table. This Ethernet switch architecture is based upon VLANs, and the switching functionality is implemented by keeping VLANs as the center of the architecture. Most of the core switching functionalities such as Ethernet host learning, packet forwarding and packet flooding are carried out on a per-VLAN basis. This architecture requires that most of the configuration to operate a switch needs to be applied on a per-VLAN basis and must be repeated for each VLAN.